TREVOR HOLDhas dragged
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29. Elgar: the Missing Enigma Variations

It is universally acknowledged that Elgar originally wrote 17 variations
on his Enigma theme. But when he showed the score to his old friend, August
Jaeger, Jaeger persuaded him to discard three in order to keep the work
to manageable length. Fortunately for us he didn't destroy the surplus
movements, for they are of equal quality to the rest. By a further piece
of good fortune he also kept the descriptive sketches he wrote about these
three discarded 'Friends Pictures Within', and these are incorporated
in the notes appended below:

'Great Aunt E. E.'. This must be Elgar's Great Aunt
Ethel who 'did so much to encourage my youthful composing efforts'.
Indeed, she was no mean composer herself, vide her full-length opera
The Smugglers of Penzance (1878). She was also a talented amateur
bassoonist and would often join her nephew for duets during her frequent
visits to Broadheath. 'Her characteristic whole-tone runs over the
keys to "warm up" are humorously burlesqued in the introductory
bars' (E.E.)

'B.M.W.' Bertie Wilson was one of Elgar's oldest friends
and a fellow-member of the Broadheath Morris Team. Hence the quotation
from 'Shepherd's Hey', which is skilfully counterpointed
with the 'Enigma' theme in bar 25. (This may also have influenced
Elgar's decision to incorporate sleigh-bells and a klaxon in the percussion
section.)

'E.S.' Eric Satie was, in Elgar's characteristic phrase,
'my old Froggie friend from Montmartre'. They first met in 1892
when Satie made a special journey to Worcester for the premiere of Elgar's
The Black Knight. The two men soon discovered they had much in common,
including a love for writing facetious letters (see Elgar and Satie:
A Life in Letters, 3 vols., 1998) and quickly established a friendship
which lasted until Satie's death. Elgar himself describes the variation
thus: 'I have attempted to portray Eric's droll personality,
translating the verbal commentaries with which he besprinkles his scores
into musical terms: hence (bar 3) 'I appear to have lost my pince
nez' is answered (bar 5) by 'Ah! Here they are!'